Human Resources (HR)

Management

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Human Resource Planning
• Importance
• Skills required by PM
• Provide a framework by which insight can be gained
into some of the human resources issues that a project
manager will face
• Recognise the role of teams in achieving project goals
• Understand that how a team is structured has an
impact on the achievement of project objectives
• Keys to effective meetings
• Performance management

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The HR Environment
• Recruitment/Hiring/Firing
• Employee Evaluation
• Laws
• Employment regulations such as wage legislation, holidays
• Health and safety
• Organizational Culture
• Organizational Standards
• Collective Agreements

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HR Planning Principles
• The most important resource is people
• A key role of a project manager is managing people
• Select the right people
• Technically skilled
• Motivated
• Enhance their ability to contribute to the project by
providing them with the resources/training they need
• Foster individual growth by providing compensation
and recognition
• Deal with issues promptly and as directly as possible

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What skills does a PM need?
• Leadership qualities
• Good Communication Skills
• Emotional Intelligence
• Capable Motivator / Ethical
• Understand people’s personality/work preferences
• Effective Negotiator
• Skilled at Conflict Resolution
• Delegator / Effective time manager

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Managing vs Leadership
• “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the
right things” - Peter Drucker, author in management field
• Management – technical discipline of applying
authority over others which is given through formalized
structural arrangement of the organization. i.e. a
position
• Leadership – the quality of obtaining results from
others through personal influence based on the
individual skills and attitudes which the project
manager possesses
• Takes a special person to perform both roles

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Many Views on Leadership
• Tannenbaum & Schmidt (1958)
• leaders are either autocratic or democratic
• Leavitt (1986)
• leaders are pathfinders, problem solvers, or implementers
• Burns (1978)
• leaders are either transactional or transformational
• Fiedler (1971)
• contingency theory, the ability of leaders to adapt
• Maxwell (1999)
• 5 levels: Position, Permission, Production, People-
Development, Pinnacle

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Communication Skills
• Communicating with staff, clients, stakeholders
• Running meetings
• Making calls
• Sending emails/reports
• Active listening is striving not just to hear, but to
understand
• See example on p. 116/117 regarding client’s body
language

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Emotional Intelligence (EQ)
• IQ (Intelligence Quotient) - ability to reason and solve
problems
• EQ - ability to perceive, assess, and manage emotions
• Daniel Goleman (1995) – popularized the term EQ

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Motivation
• Think big picture – and shares that vision
• Enthusiasm and passion, makes people feel valued
• Works hard, and expects same from people around
them
• Know how to develop and use their employee’s talents
• Proactive, perseverance, optimistic -> trust
• Ultimately leads to higher productivity and engagement

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Ethics in PM
• Ethical dilemmas involve situations where it’s difficult to
determine whether conduct is right or wrong
• Is it acceptable to falsely assure a client that everything
is on track, when in reality you are just trying to keep
them from panicking and making things worse?
• 81% of PMs reported they encountered ethical issues
• Being pressured to alter status reports, backdating
signatures, approving shoddy work, compromising
safety to accelerate progress, etc.
• Ethical behavior is its own reward – both because you
can sleep at night but also affects your reputation
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Personality Types/Preferences
• Myers-Briggs: four dimensions (yielding 16 types):
Extrovert <–> Introvert
Sensing <–> Intuition
Thinking <–> Feeling
Judging <–> Perceiving

• KOLBE Index: measures your instincts (how you work)

• Generally, a mix of personality/work instinct types on a
project brings strength
• Knowing your own type and the types of other team
members can help people work together

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Negotiation
• a process for developing a mutually acceptable outcome
when what’s desired by each party conflicts
• PM will be negotiating with clients, team members,
suppliers, other stakeholders
• Frequently, PMs have accountability to but may have
limited authority
• Matrix management structure, or subject matter experts (SME)
• A number of strategies exist - Compete, Accommodate,
Avoid, Compromise, Collaborate - but the goal is to
achieve the greatest value for the project

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Conflict Resolution
• Conflict is not a bad thing—it can be healthy for people
to be able to express differences about how to
approach the work
• Conflict-resolution styles (Cameron & Whetton (2005)):
• Avoiding, Forcing, Collaborating, Compromising, Accommodating
• Surefire ways to resolve conflicts:
• Have each side state the other’s position
• Brainstorm creative/unconventional solutions
• Use humor to ease tension
• Physically move discussion away from workplace
• Negotiate over a meal
• Have parties dress casually
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Managing Time Effectively
• Personal management is a learnable skill!
• Working long hours and having your own work delayed
or interrupted leads to poor decision making (& stress)
• Working this way makes you feel useful but may not
make you effective
• Time categories: proactive, reactive, and inactive
• Any system used to better manage time will aim to shift
these amounts
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Steven Covey)

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Delegation
• A study of project managers showed:
• 49% spent time on tasks that could be done by admin staff
• 5% spent time on task that could be delegated to subordinates
• 43% spent time on tasks that could be delegated to peers
• 3% spent time which justify the input of their talents & abilities
• PM is not expected to do all the work
• Must identify & clearly assign work to others on team
• Make expectations clear
• Recognize performance
• Follow through

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Typical project team roles
• Project teams bring together people from differing
specialties as needed to accomplish project tasks
• These include:
• Project Manager
• Developer
• Engineer
• Subject Matter Expert (SME)
• Team members
• Customer / client representative

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Define Roles & Responsibilities

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Who does what? RACI Chart

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Staffing Management Plan

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Organizational Structure
• Objective: understand that how a team is organized
has an impact on the achievement of project objectives
• Structure used will depend on the size of group and the
needs of the business
• Terminology:
• Span of control -> number of employees
• Chain of command -> how instruction & communication
flows (from top > down)
• Subordinate -> who works for whom

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Hierarchical Structure

Pros: clear accountability, motivation by promotion

Cons: slower communication, high costs of manager salary
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Functional Structure

Grouped by function, product, or geography

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Flat Structure

Pros: fast communication, employees have more

autonomy, save $ on manager salary
Cons: little to no progression, only works with small #s
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Matrix Structure

Pros: rapid communication, highly collaborative

Cons: split across managers, takes time to gel with team
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Matrix Structure
• The strength of the matrix is based upon who has more
influence over the daily performance of the team
• Heavyweight (Strong) – PM in charge of team and team
members seconded to the team from their departments
for the duration of the project work
• Balanced Matrix – PM and line manager balance power,
team members will have dual responsibilities
• Lightweight (Weak) – Team members managed by their
manager. PM is a coordinator only, responsibility is
shared by the participating functional departments

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Managing Project Teams
• Synergy: “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts”
• Important to share a common focus
• Each member is willing to work towards that goal
• Team exerts energy toward problem solving, not conflict
• Differences of opinion are encouraged
• Encourage risk taking, mistakes not punished; learned
from
• Set high standards of performance and hold each other
accountable

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Factors Affecting Team
Development
High-performance teams are more likely to develop when:
• Fewer than 10 members
• Members serve full time, from start to end
• Members report solely to the PM for project duration
• Organizational culture fosters trust and cooperation
• All relevant functional areas are represented on the team
• The project has a compelling objective
• Members are located within conversational distance of
each other

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Building Teams
• Recruiting Members
• Conducting Project Meetings
• Establish Team Identity
• Crate a Shared Vision
• Managing Reward Systems
• Orchestrating the Decision-Making Process
• Manage Conflict
• Rejuvenate the Project Team

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Stages of Team Development
• Bruce Tuckman (1965)
1. Forming (Leader as Director/Guide)
2. Storming (Leader as Facilitator/Coach)
3. Norming (Leader as Collaborator)
4. Performing (Leader as Observer)
5. Adjourning (Leader as Rewarder)

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 Conducting Project Meetings
• PM will often have to chair meetings, so good practice on
how they should be run is relevant
• A fundamental management skill that is assumed to be
easy, yet many meetings adjourn with no progress made
• Ever Meeting Ever

“If you don’t know where you’re going,

you’re liable to end up somewhere
else”
Yogi Berra
(Source: Usa Today)

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Types of Meetings
• Instructional - meeting leader lectures and group absorbs
material
• Informational - presents information then a discussion
period follows
• Developmental - develop policies/procedures. Members
offer ideas & opinions which are considered by the entire
group to reach a decision
• Soliciting Opinions - someone in authority arrives at a
conclusion and decision based on opinions of others
• Reconciliatory - leader is like a referee and allows parties
to freely express their side of an issue. Leader sums up
the meeting and arrives at a conclusion
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Meeting Best Practices
• Pre-meeting:
• Set a clear objective (list questions/topics you would like the answered or discussed)
• Identify required attendees, allocate time for each topic, and a speaker
• Assign meeting roles (organizer, facilitator, attendees, notetaker)
• Send location/time/agenda in advance

• Running the meeting:

• Provide a forum for constructive debate while limiting the scope to the matter at hand
• Do not allow repetition of points or any one member to dominate discussion
• Remember that the attention level of most people declines rapidly after 20 minutes and
after 2 hours it is unlikely that any constructive progress is made
• What the chair of the meeting is striving for is consensus, if everyone truly buys in then
carrying out the decision will be easier

• Post meeting follow up:

• Send minutes with action items and who is carrying them out
• This page then forms the early part of the next meeting to ensure that whoever said they
would carry out a task has done it

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Agenda
Template

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Employee Performance
Management
• Employee performance includes:
• employee’s work results such as quality (or quantity) of outputs
• work behavior (such as punctuality)
• job-related attributes (such as cooperation and initiative)
• After conducting performance reviews, managers should:
• provide feedback to employees about how well they have
performed on established goals, and about areas in which the
subordinate is weak or could do better
• take corrective action to address problems with employees
performing at or below the minimum expectations
• reward superior performers to encourage their continued
excellence

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HR Management Summary
• Includes all the soft skills that are required to manage
people (communicating, motivating, conflict resolution…)
• There are several theories of leadership; leadership is
more than issuing directives
• A number of models/structures can be used to help the
team work together – each with their own applicability,
pros, and cons
• Conducting meetings is an important PM role
• At the end of a project, conducting performance reviews
are an important step in fostering employee growth

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